Posts Tagged ‘quote’

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DNA Tattoos Are the Final Frontier of Love

December 18, 2017

DNA Tattoos Are the Final Frontier of Love
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/12/09/style/dna-tattoos.html Putting some DNA into tattoo ink via @Everence_Life. But what of putting tattoos into non-functional DNA with CRISPR? Maybe next? HT @gamzeandgursoy

QT:{{
Four years, a handful of dedicated colleagues and nearly a dozen patents later, Mr. Duffy has brought the idea to life with Everence, a product he and his partners hope will deepen bonds — in the most literal and physical way — between family, friends and loved ones. It is about as biologically intimate as one can get. Everence is a powdery substance synthesized from a sample of DNA, something as simple as a few thousand cells from a swab of a person’s inner cheek, or from cremated ashes. A small vial of Everence can be brought to a tattoo artist and added to any type of inks.
The result: A tattoo imbued with the DNA of another human being — or, if you prefer, a dog, cat or other furry friend.
In so doing, Mr. Duffy and Endeavor Life Sciences, his company, join the ranks of a winding list of biohackers, artists and technologists dabbling in the world of biogenic tattoo artistry. Many have mixed ash, hair or other material with inks to include organics in tattooing for years.
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Opinion | How Computers Turned Gerrymandering Into a Science

December 18, 2017

How Computers Turned Gerrymandering Into a Science
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/sunday/computers-gerrymandering-wisconsin.html MCMC random walks evaluate possible redistricting swaps, producing complex boundaries. Eventually, we may get fractal electoral maps!

QT:{{”
The clustering of Democrats in cities does indeed give the Republicans an edge. But it’s a much smaller advantage than the turbo-boost the current map provides, as the Duke paper demonstrates. The main tool in the Duke paper is a method called the “Markov chain Monte Carlo” algorithm. Starting from the current Wisconsin district map, it makes a sequence of random changes, swapping wards from one district to an adjacent one, carrying out a “random walk” through the set of all possible maps. Completely unconstrained changes would create crazy-looking districts, so it weights its changes in favor of traditional districting criteria.
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How Long Does Yogurt Last? Shelf Life, Storage, Expiration

December 16, 2017

“Yogurt Expiration Date

(Unopened) Refrigerator Freezer
Frozen Yogurt lasts for — 2-3 Months
Drinkable Yogurt lasts for 7-10 Days, 1-2 Months
Reduced Fat Yogurt lasts for 1-2 Weeks, 1-2 Months
Yogurt With Fruit lasts for 7-10 Days, 1-2 Months

…
All yogurt manufacturers that we checked with guarantee their product quality for 7 days beyond the printed sell by date
…
How to tell if Yogurt is bad, rotten or spoiled?

…
Although not a perfect test, your senses are usually the most reliable instruments to tell if your yogurt has gone bad. A small amount of liquid is ok in most yogurts, it is called whey and actually contains several nutrients that should be mixed into the yogurt before eating. But an increased amount of surface liquid (or, in the case of Yoplait yogurt and a few others that do not have any excess liquid to begin with, it’s when a puddle begins to form) and a curdling texture near the bottom of the container are the first signs of yogurt going bad. The final signal that your yogurt has indeed gone bad is the formation of mold and at that point you must throw the entire container away, no matter what. Live bacterial cultures in yogurt act as a preservative, but once those cultures start to die off then mold can start to form. Never consume mold in any shape or form!”
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Yale Professors Race Google and IBM to the First Quantum Computer

December 16, 2017

QT:{{”
“Based just down the road from Yale in New Haven, Conn., and backed by $18 million in funding from the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and others, the start-up is another sign that quantum computing — for decades a distant dream of the world’s computer scientists — is edging closer to reality.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/technology/quantum-computing-research.html

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How to extinguish the inflammation epidemic | New Scientist

December 16, 2017

How to extinguish the inflammation epidemic
https://www.NewScientist.com/article/mg23431300-500-how-to-extinguish-the-inflammation-epidemic/ QT: “Persistent background
#inflammation…dubbed…’para-inflammation’…is an unfortunate consequence of…long…lives. Stress is a…problem…Inflammation is being discussed…[as linking it]…w/ disease”

QT:{{”
This persistent background inflammation might not always make us feel ill, but it can store up problems for the future, from heart disease to type 2 diabetes and neurodegenerative disease. In 2008,
immunobiologist Ruslan Medzhitov of Yale University dubbed this “para-inflammation” and argued that it is an unfortunate consequence of our longer, calorie-rich lives.

Stress is a particular problem. The hormone noradrenaline, which is released in anticipation of an impending life-or-death situation, sets off the same chain of events as an infection or injury. Yet although stresses passed quickly in our evolutionary past, these days many of us are walking around with a ticking time bomb of stress-induced inflammation that never quite goes away. “Chronic, low-grade inflammation is being discussed in our field as one of the main pathways linking stressful life conditions with disease,” says Nicolas Rohleder of Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Over the past few years, for example, Rohleder has found that the long-term strains of caring for a seriously ill family member, and a series of short-term stresses, both increase levels of inflammatory markers in otherwise healthy people.
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One clue came in 2000 when Serhan and his team revealed that inflammation has an off switch. Until then, the reaction was thought to peter out as the immune cells that secrete cytokines gradually reduced in number and their effects became diluted. In fact, Serhan found that neutrophils and macrophages, the types of white blood cell that kick off the process, actively change tack once it has got going, releasing a second set of chemicals – called resolvins – that help mop up any remaining cytokines and sweep away any debris.
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google released variant calling with deep learning

December 16, 2017

$GOOG Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Seq. https://Research.GoogleBlog.com/2017/12/deepvariant-highly-accurate-genomes.html + https://www.Wired.com/story/google-is-giving-away-ai-that-can-build-your-genome-sequence GATK creators now doing a tensor-flow version. Release sounded a bit like IBM unveiling Deep Blue decades ago: “Today, we announce…DeepVariant, a #DeepLearning tech…"

Steven Salzberg’s response to deep variant:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2017/12/11/no-googles-new-ai-cant-build-your-genome-sequence/#5953db7b5774

QT:{{"On Monday, Google released a tool called DeepVariant that uses deep learning—the machine learning technique that now dominates AI—to identify all the mutations that an individual inherits from their parents.1 Modeled loosely on the networks of neurons in the human brain, these massive mathematical models have learned how to do things like identify faces posted to your Facebook news feed, transcribe your inane requests to Siri, and even fight internet trolls. And now, engineers at Google Brain and Verily (Alphabet’s life sciences spin-off) have taught one to take raw sequencing data and line up the billions of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs that make you you.”
"}}

Google Is Giving Away AI That Can Build Your Genome Sequence
https://www.wired.com/story/google-is-giving-away-ai-that-can-build-your-genome-sequence/

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Pima people – Wikipedia

December 10, 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pima_people

QT:{{"

The Keli Akimel O’odham and the Onk Akimel O’odham have various environmentally based health issues related to the decline of their traditional economy and farming. They have the highest prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the world, much more than is observed in other U.S. populations. While they do not have a greater risk than other tribes, the Pima people have been the subject of intensive study of diabetes, in part because they form a homogeneous group.[13]

The general increased diabetes prevalence among Native Americans has been hypothesized as the result of the interaction of genetic predisposition (the thrifty phenotype or thrifty genotype), as suggested by anthropologist Robert Ferrell in 1984)[13] and a sudden shift in diet during the last century from traditional agricultural crops to processed foods, together with a decline in physical activity. For comparison, genetically similar O’odham in Mexico have only a slighter higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes than non-O’odham Mexicans.[14]

"}}
study sponsored by NIH NIDDK

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The Serial-Killer Detector | The New Yorker

December 9, 2017

The Serial-Killer Detector
https://www.NewYorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-serial-killer-detector Journalist finds subtle yet predictive crime patterns with the computer. Wonder if #DeepLearning would be helpful here? Probably not // #CrimeMap

Qt:{{‘
A former journalist, equipped with an algorithm and the largest collection of murder records in the country, finds patterns in crime. “}}

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Mapping air pollution with new mobile sensors

December 3, 2017

Mapping #AirPollution with new mobile sensors
https://www.EDF.org/airqualitymaps Quote: “Any business that relies on heavy-duty diesel trucks can pose a health risk to its neighbors.”

QT:{{”
“This is one of several spots that caught our interest: High levels of pollutants in an area that includes homes, and this playground, close to industrial warehouses. Any business that relies on heavy-duty diesel trucks can pose a health risk to its neighbors.”
“}}

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The Man Who Knows Whether Any Startup Will Live or Die

December 3, 2017

The Man Who Knows Whether Any Startup Will Live or Die
https://www.Wired.com/2015/01/growth-science Quote: “You can’t trust the model until you get all the intuition out of it.” Not sure I agree!

QT:{{”
“Swapping out your drafty old windows for new energy efficient ones could save you a bundle in the long-term, but not everyone wants to spend the time and money to retrofit their entire home or office building. Indow Windows offers inserts that can improve efficiency without the cost or hassle of replacing the windows entirely. “Some other startups have tried this, and some of the big guys are trying to respond, but there’s a lot more innovation required to pull this off than most people suspect,” Thurston says. “In a very short timeframe Indow has zoomed up to become the market leader.”

…
His approach is based on turning various pieces of qualitative information—such as whether a company is a “first mover” or “fast follower” in a market—into quantitative data that he can plug into a spreadsheet. That requires a degree of human judgement, but this also requires a certain amount of rigor or consistency.

“You can’t trust the model until you get all the intuition out of it,” Thurston says. “The hard part of that is translating the qualification into yes or no questions,” he says. “How do you define the market? How do you define first mover?””

“}}

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